Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Paul Thagard, Karl Marx and G. Aldo Antonelli

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5 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
Whether human thinking can be 'true' must be decided in practice, not theory [Marx]
     Full Idea: The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question; man must prove the truth of his thinking in practice.
     From: Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach [1846], §II)
     A reaction: This would appear to be an assertion of the pragmatic view of truth well before Peirce. The obvious objections arise, such as whether falsehood (Plato's 'noble lie') might not have equal practical success, and whether truth might be disastrous.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
Coherence problems have positive and negative restraints; solutions maximise constraint satisfaction [Thagard]
     Full Idea: A coherence problem is a set of elements connected by positive and negative restraints, and a solution consists of partitioning the elements into two sets (accepted and rejected) in a way that maximises satisfaction of the constraints.
     From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.42)
     A reaction: I'm enthusiastic about this, as it begins to clarify the central activity of epistemology, which is the quest for best explanations.
Coherence is explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative [Thagard]
     Full Idea: I propose that there are six main kinds of coherence: explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative. ...Epistemic coherence is a combination of the first five kinds, and ethics adds the sixth.
     From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.43)
     A reaction: Wonderful. Someone is getting to grips with the concept of coherence, instead of just whingeing about how vague it is.
Explanatory coherence needs symmetry,explanation,analogy,data priority, contradiction,competition,acceptance [Thagard]
     Full Idea: Informally, a theory of explanatory coherence has the principles of symmetry, explanation, analogy, data priority, contradiction, competition and acceptance.
     From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.44)
     A reaction: [Thagard give a concise summary of his theory here] Again Thagard makes a wonderful contribution in an area where most thinkers are pessimistic about making any progress. His principles are very plausible.
2. Reason / E. Argument / 1. Argument
You can 'rebut' an argument's conclusion, or 'undercut' its premises [Antonelli]
     Full Idea: A 'rebut' of an argument establishes that its conclusion is not the case. An 'undercut' of the argument shows that the premises do not support that conclusion.
     From: G. Aldo Antonelli (Non-Monotonic Logic [2014], 3.2)